The White Lotus

Discourses on Fragmentary Notes of Bodhidharma’s Four Disciples The White Lotus is a beautiful symbol. White represents multidimensionality, because white contains all the colors of the spectrum. That is the most strange, unbelievable quality about white: it contains all the colors yet it seems to be colorless. But it contains all those colors in such synthesis, in such harmony, that they all disappear. They dissolve into oneness and that oneness is white. White represents the ultimate synthesis and harmony. And the lotus also is a great symbol, particularly in the East. The lotus represents the essential meaning of sannyas. The lotus lives in the lake and yet the water cannot touch it. it lives in the water and yet remains untouched by the water. The lotus represents the witnessing quality of your being: you live in the world, but you remain a witness. You remain in the world and yet you are not part of it. You participate and yet you are not part of it. You are in the world, but the world is not in you. When you become a calm and cool observer of life you are going to laugh -- not ordinarily laughter but a belly laughter like a lion’s roar. And white lotuses will start showering on you.